第四章：選擇學校

選擇學校第一個就是要確定自己能夠有學校念。一般來說申請數量基本上二十所起跳。如果準備妥當，申請二十所大概就有機會上。在選校之前，最好先確定自己的研究方向，並且利用之前參與畢業論文、專題研究的經驗選出有相關連的實驗室所在的學校。並針對其中又興趣的實驗室進行接觸，對對方文章提出問題以及表達興趣。越早開始越好。另外，可以參考US NEWS 或是 上海交大作出的學校排名進行初步階段的篩選，選出自己比較有可能上的學校。如果只有大學畢業，沒有研究經驗，一般來講是很難申請上美國 TOP40大學的博士班（台大畢業例外）。清華，交大，成大建議讀完碩士，對研究比較有感覺以及有成果後，再進行申請，比較容易進到美國 TOP40 的學校。

1. Select your research area and actively check out the profiles of relevant professors/post-docs/grad students (in that order) at the schools you are thinking of applying to. Check out their publications, and try to read (or at least skim) one representative publication before you start forming an opinion. The goals of this step are three-fold:

• (a) It will give you a good idea of how productive a research group is, and whether a professor is even accepting (or currently has) students. This is closely tied to the funding situation of that professor.
• (b) It will make you more informed about whether you really want to join that research group. What looks interesting at the high-level is not necessarily as exciting once you get into the nuts and bolts of the research.
• (c) If you discover a really good 'fit' (which is the best outcome of this exercise; trust me), you can use that in a big way in your application. In CS for example, students often post their code or demos. Download those and tinker with them. Apply them to new datasets. Have fun with what's available. I'm sure similar things can be done in other research areas.

1. After you have done (1), try to make contact with the faculty member of your choice. At the same time, also try to establish connections with the grad students. My adviser once showed me a list of potential Ph.D. candidates he was screening, and asked me if by chance I'd heard of any of them. As it turned out, I did know one, through early contact. Needless to say, she got the position. The rest of her application didn't even really matter at that point. Note that the reason you should do this step after (1) is to enable you to write an 'intelligent' note to the person you're contacting. It's a good idea to not mention that you're applying at all in your early emails. Instead, try to start a conversation around the actual research. Show that you're interested and that you know what you're talking about. Become a familiar name in that group. 
2. ...and finally, make sure to attend lots of talks by visiting faculty in your undergrad university. You don't know where that will lead you. If someone's talk influences you to pursue an area of research, that's an excellent thing to reference in your SOP.